[sottol]

It is definitely more expensive than 3d printing in terms of consumables but china/aliexpress has really good hobby-quality equipment now - if you don't mind the country of origin. Many of their coated end-mills are decent and < $5 depending on diameter.

Maybe not stuff you would want to run professionally but it works quite well in a hobbyist setting and a mistake won't cost you $50.

I also looked into the Millenium Milo, only downside for me and kinda why I decided to design my own Voron V0-ish sized mini CNC machine was the really large footprint for about 3x the work volume (work _area_ is ~2x afair). An enclosed Milo would take up about the same volume as two 350mm Voron's side-by-side. So footprint of a small desk.

Imo besides the price, the other big factor is just how much less forgiving CNC machining is than 3d printing - so many mistakes you can make, zeroing the WCS, wrong WCS, mounting the work different than you had it in CAM, ... bam, at least the work is ruined. That's kind of another longer-term goal with my CNC machine, reducing some of these errors if possible with a web-based UI and maybe some computer vision. But that's far off, I'm currently playing with using a camera for work-probing/WCS-zeroing and it's sloooow progress :')

[syntaxing]

Have you seen the Carvera Air? Not gonna lie, I'm equally tempted but that price point is tough to swallow. Its about $7-800 more than the Milo but has a bunch of things built in that you would probably would enjoy like touch probe leveling and camera zeroing. Its the "Bambulab" of the CNC world.

[sottol]

I designed a little machine that's smaller than the Carvera with a 300W spindle at a lower price-point but requiring DIY (my build is probably around $550-600 now), I kept it smaller for a couple of reasons but stiffness was one of them.

The Carvera has an excellent work-volume to machine size ratio. Afaict it's not the stiffest machine but quite decent. The spindle power looks about right for it's level of stiffness judging by the YT videos I've seen.

[cjbgkagh]

Like many things it’ll depend on your use case. Carvera Air is 200W vs Milo 1.5kW which could make a big difference.

[syntaxing]

Yeah, the 1.5kW spindle + VFD sounds absolutely amazing. It would be pretty nice to be able to cut some steel but not sure if the structure is stiff enough for it

[cjbgkagh]

There seems to be an upgrade path for cutting steel with a slower spindle and extra steel plates for added stiffness. There are other DIY CNCs that are designed for steel and use concrete for stiffness which are probably more appropriate - but they do cost more so it really depends on your needs.

What I think will really change things are the 3-in-1 fiber laser sources that can be used for welding, cutting, and cleaning. Building a CNC gantry that can use the cutter means large pieces can be cut from stock plate, assembled like a 3D puzzle, and very quickly welded together. While much more expensive than a Milo it is be a totally different category for capability. Plus a handheld laser welding, cutting, cleaning are very useful tools in their own right. I think laser welding is soaking up most of the supply at the moment but I also think it's just a matter of time before people figure out how to hook up the cutter to a CNC gantry like many already do with hand held plasma torches.

[jwr]

I have the Carvera (not Air) and it's a very good machine mechanically, the software leaves a lot to be desired.

It isn't even close to being the Bambu Lab of the CNC world, unfortunately, but I'd say only because of the software. If they open-source their controller, things might improve quickly.

[syntaxing]

Oh bummed to hear that, how’s the ATC? The ATC was always the most fascinating part for me for the original Carvera. The Air does not have this feature but it’s expected given the price difference.

[jwr]

The ATC works really well, better than I expected. Although without software support it is pretty much useless — I have no idea how people can recommend that I renumber my tools to 1-6 in Fusion CAM for every job.

What I did was write a post-post-processor of sorts that takes the .nc output, watches for tool changes, and using the tool library information automatically assigns ATC slots, renumbers tools, and generates pauses if collet changes are required (e.g. changing from a 6mm shank to 4mm or to 3.175mm).

That means I can now look at a list of assigned ATC slots, put in the correct tools, and let the machine rip, only pausing for collet changes. Pretty nice and how it should be.

However, I have to say, while the ATC is nice to have, I would not consider it to be the primary factor when buying a CNC machine. Those tool changes don't take long and are not difficult to do manually. It's much more important to get a rigid machine with limited backlash.

[syntaxing]

Kinda crazy, I know post processors cost money for CAM software like masterCAM but didn’t expect you needed to write one for a hobby CNC too. I know fusion360 had a post processing functionality but I think they moved that into the paid version. I miss the fusion360 of 5 years ago.

[sottol]

I think the Fusion posts are still available in the free version - afaik certain things like overriding the feed speed no longer work though.

And I only briefly looked into it, but most Fusion post-processors are just Javascript! (or at least based on it)